The Eye of the Tiger

     We have a new physical therapy song; The Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. I use to listen to it before a run (back in my high school cross country days) and it use to pump me up. So I played it for Amaya and she loved it! Josh got it for us and now we listen to it on the way to therapy every day (per Amaya's request). Sometimes just once a day, other days several times. Today I showed her Rocky III (again per her request. She wanted to see where the song came from). She loved it. Yesterday we watched Believe in Me; a movie that one of Josh's co-workers bought Amaya. Its based on a true story of a basketball coach who coaches an all girls team to a state championship. They had to work hard and overcome obstacles and were a great example for Amaya. Amaya loved it; I think she's developing an appreciation for inspirational movies like her mother. She's been getting motivated by these movies, and songs. It's been a great motivator for physical therapy. At this point we need all the motivation that we can!
    Therapy was very tough today. I think I need a stronger word than tough, tough just doesn't seem to do it justice. Here's a look at her session today.

Amaya rode the bi-scooter down the hall, up the hill then back down the hall. 

Here's a video of her as she reached the top of the hill.

Melissa had Amaya step over the blocks in the peds gym. 

She had a hard time bending her leg. You can see in the picture that she would swing her leg out to the side because it was so hard to bend her knee over the blocks. It's her "pirate walk."

Melissa did a new stretch/exercise with Amaya today. She had Amaya bend her legs up against the door then push off like a rocket. 

Here's video of her doing it. 

I took a picture of her top pin sites today; these have been bothering her so much these past couple of days. I wanted to get a good look at them to make sure they weren't infected.

   After the work then we started to do her knee bends and stretches then measuring her knee. It took us ten minutes to get her knee to ninety degrees. At first she was in the sixties, then was able to get it to seventy six. It took a few more bends, and time then she was in the eighties. She was in pain, but she didn't give up. She kept saying, "I'll try" or "okay" or "I'll do it." I was so proud of her for not giving up. On her last bend she slowly crept from eighty to eighty-five, then eighty-eight. At this point she was exhausted and worn out. I tried rubbing her back, but she got mad and pushed my hand off and with that last grunt she got to ninety.  She cried and tried to get comfortable.
    When we got home I massaged her knee, watched Rocky III with her. Before bed we did more stretches, knee bends, exercises and then showered. During her shower we spent five minutes pushing down the skin around the pins on the top and middle pins. Melissa suggested that we do that to help loosen the skin at the pin sites, because they've been hurting Amaya so much (even more than her muscles). We knew that it would hurt, but she wanted to do it herself (she said it would hurt less than if I did it). During her shower Amaya said, "do you remember when we started doing showers and I was so freaked out? Now it's not so bad, we worked through it." Melissa said that if she still had a hard time tomorrow she would suggest we drop down to three turns a day. That would add two to three more days of turns, which Amaya wants to avoid. Wish us luck!